Huts a link with ‘Heroic Age’

Press, 10 April 1987, Page 9

Huts a link with ‘Heroic Age’

A group of historic huts in the Ross Dependency have been granted a reprieve from the effects of time and the Antarctic environment

The buildings and a number of other historic sites are the surviving links with the "Heroic Age” of Antarctic exploration between 1899 and 1912. They are reminders of Scott, Shackleton, and Borchgrevink. The New Zealand Government has announced plans to restore, preserve and protect the sites, a project which will be led by a Christ-church-based Antarctic Heritage Trust

A Christchurch industrialist and former New Zealand Antarctic Society summer “caretaker” of the historic huts on Ross Island, Mr Peter Skellerup, will chair the trust Other members will include the British High Commissioner to New Zealand, the United States Ambassador and the director of

the Christchurch Museum ... a membership which a trustee, Mr Richard McElrea, of Christchurch, described as reflecting the international historical significance of the sites. The trust will encourage the conservation and preservation of the sites and artefacts in the Ross Dependency and elsewhere in Antarctica.

It will raise funds, make policy recommendations, and liaise with other Antarctic organisations.

The huts of Carsten Borchgrevink at Cape Adare (1899), Captain Robert Falcon Scott at Hut Point (1902) and Cape Evans (1912), and Sir Ernest Shackleton at Cape Royds (1908) lie at the core of a variety of sites including the remains of a rock shelter on Inexpressible Island, Terra Nova Bay, constructed by the 1910-13 British Antarctic Expedition, and Nicolai Hansen’s ' grave at < Cape Adare.

“Because of their intense historical interest and their portrayal of a lifestyle of those first over-wintering parties, it would be remiss of the present generation not to ensure their preservation for the future,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Lange.

Antarctica was the only continent on Earth on which the first human habitations still existed.

The huts became the focus of renovation and restoration projects during the 1960 s and 19705. They were excavated from the ice during a combined D.S.I.R. Antarctic Division-New Zealand Antarctic Society project. Annual survey and maintenance work has continued but exposure to the atmosphere, especially during the warmer temperatures of the brief Antarctic summer, and salt in the atmosphere is causing a gradual deterioration of the huts’ interiors and xteriors.

“A substantial programme of professional conservation is now necessary to secure the huts and their artefacts for posterity,” Mr Lane said.

According to Mr McElrea, “a considerable amount of work” needed to be done on site. Selected artefacts would also be temporarily returned to New Zealand for restoration.

“The majority of visitors to Antarctica wants to see the huts. They are one of the highlights of a visit there. They are museums, largely in the state left by the early explorers,” he said. “They represent the era of exploration when wireless was non-exis-tent and the Edwardian notions of courage and Empire were present They have an international historical significance.”

The trust will lobby for funds and support from a variety of organisations. An executive officer will be appointed to co-ordi-nate activities.